


small steps

by greywardenblue



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Fictober 2019, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-02-23 04:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23172145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywardenblue/pseuds/greywardenblue
Summary: The one where Tybalt tells Gillian about his early relationship with October, among other things. Getting a stepparent is always difficult, but they will make it work.
Relationships: Gillian Daye Marks & Tybalt
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	small steps

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt in this work:  
> "Enough! I heard enough."

Gillian sleepily followed the sound of hammering outside. The half-finished catio was coming along nicely, and Tybalt looked nothing like a King in his shorts and the Something Rotten T-shirt with orange paint on it. Gillian was still getting used to the idea that nobles and royalty actually existed, and regularly seeing several of them in their pajamas didn’t really help.

“Can you keep it down? I have a headache.”

Tybalt glanced up and smirked. “You let me work, and I’m not going to tell your mother you’re hungover.” He gestured to her feet with the hammer. “Nice bunny slippers.”

Gillian looked down. “I had cat ones too, but Raj hissed at me for them.” She raised her head again just to glare at him. “And I’ll have you know, I’m already twenty-one. Plus, the drinking age in literally any other country is between sixteen and eighteen, so I’m way overdue for being hungover.”

Tybalt watched her, deep in thought, until Gillian started finding it awkward. “What?”

He looked away, returning to the small ramp he was working on. “I was just thinking about how fast time passes.”

Gillian paused. That was something her father said often - how his little girl had grown up so fast. It must have been even stranger to October, who wasn’t actually around for the growing up part. But then again, neither was Tybalt.

“Sooo…” she started, and while he didn’t turn to look at her, she could tell he was listening. She stepped closer. “If you’re my stepdad now–”

Tybalt yelped as the hammer hit his finger, and Gillian laughed.

“If you’re my stepdad now,” she continued, merciless. “Does that mean I can ask you for pocket money?”

Tybalt looked at her suspiciously. “Do you need pocket money?”

Gillian shrugged. “Why not?”

“… How much?”

Gillian sensed weakness. “How much have you got?”

Tybalt rolled his eyes and turned back to the ramp. Damn. “Nobody warned me that marrying October would mean suddenly raising three young adults.”

“I mean… if somebody had, would you have changed your mind?”

Tybalt snorted. “Of course not.”

“Well, there you go.” Gillian watched this strange man work and thought about how much she still didn’t understand. Her mother was nearly old enough to be her grandmother, and her other mother… and her third mother… were all centuries old. “How did you two meet, anyway?”

“Do you really mean to ask how we met, or how we became a couple? Because those are two very different questions.”

“Both, I guess.”

Tybalt reached down to take another plank, considering his answer. “We’ve been aware of each other’s existence since October was a teenager. At first, I saw her only as the unruly daughter of a woman I’ve known for centuries and never particularly liked. That, and the girl who was dragging my niece into trouble all the time.”

“What was your problem with my grandma?” Gillian asked. Tybalt bristled visibly, and she quickly added, “Back then, I mean. I know she’s a bitch now.”

“Well, I suppose the fact that she stole my boyfriend once didn’t help.” Tybalt laughed at the shocked look on Gillian’s face, then continued more seriously. “I would have gotten over that, since it was such a long time ago. But Amandine was… she is still a perfect example of most problems I have with the Divided Courts, particularly the Daoine Sidhe. Not that she is one, but she fit the role well enough. Incredibly beautiful and incredibly boring, and fully convinced that her looks put her above the rest of us beasts.”

Misty, Gillian’s new cat poked his head out the door. He must have been drawn by the sound of talking and the lack of hammering, because he happily trotted up to Gillian and jumped in her lap. Tybalt watched them for a moment, then continued.

“It took me a shamefully long time to recognize that October wasn’t like her. I suppose the fact that she was half-human and willingly associating with changelings and even cats should have clued me in sooner.” He shook his head. “She was brave, and she wanted to help people. Even when she insisted she wasn’t a hero, she always wanted to help people. Once, I watched her jump into a crater left by a magical explosion to see if anyone was alive down there.”

Gillian listened quietly. People kept telling her that Toby was a hero, and apparently she had a title to go with it, too. Or several, really.

“And then, just around the time when I was starting to consider the unlikely possibility that I might actually like her as a person…” Gillian snorted, but Tybalt didn’t stop. “She disappeared. Gone without a trace, and nobody knew where she could be, or whether she was alive at all. I didn’t know her too much back then, but I already knew she was something that is very rare in the Divided Courts. So I mourned her. So did many others. More than she would believe, certainly.”

“My father mourned her,” Gillian said. “And she was in a pond, as a fish. And now I’m a fish.”

Tybalt looked at her, amused. “Seals are mammals.”

“Marine mammals. Close enough.”

“When she came back, she was… broken. She reminded me of myself in my darkest years. I’ve lived long enough to…” Tybalt hesitated. “I’ve lived long enough to lose all the family I had several times. My siblings, then my sister and niece, then my wife and daughter. Each time, I was left alone. She was like that, too. But when she thought a friend of hers… not even a friend, really. When she thought this woman needed help, she put aside her misery and helped.” Tybalt fiddled with the nails, but it seemed like he was taking a break from the building to focus on his memories. “I couldn’t tell you when it happened. Once, I told her outright that I would never fall in love with her, and after that, the universe was determined to prove me wrong. She kept surprising me. She was still the same woman, but somehow different. So I started looking at her differently, too.”

Mr Mistoffelees purred contently in Gillian’s lap, and his warm presence combined with Tybalt’s storytelling voice was enough to make her content, too. The sun was shining. The air was fresh. This was nice.

“There were complications, of course. Even if I had been willing to admit my feelings, I couldn’t commit to a relationship with someone outside my Court without giving up my crown. In the end we found a number of solutions, but even now, it will be years before everything is arranged. For a long time, I wasn’t willing to risk that. And by the time I might have been, your mother was dating somebody else.”

“Connor,” Gillian added.

Tybalt nodded with a frown, but didn’t comment. “After that… when your mother was grieving, she returned to the woman she was in those months after the pond. I supported her as best as I could, and so did the rest of her family, but it wasn’t enough. Then one day I decided that I couldn’t put this off anymore. It would have been dishonest to go on without telling her how I felt, so I did.”

“And now you’re engaged.”

Tybalt laughed again. “That is a very simplified summary of the last few years. But yes, you are right. On this day, I am engaged to be married to the bravest, kindest, and most wonderful woman in my acquaintance, no offense to your dear aunts. I have done my duty to my people, and I fully intend to spend the rest of my days making her as happy as she makes me.”

Gillian wrinkled her nose, but she laughed, too. “Enough! I heard enough. That is way too sappy for my taste, and I want to stop this before you get into the intimate details. Or write a sonnet about her eyes or something.”

Tybalt smirked at her. “What makes you think I haven’t?”

“Ugh!” Gillian rolled her eyes and threw her hands in the air theatrically. “Even Mr Mistoffelees thinks you’re overdoing it, and that’s a lot, coming from him.”

Tybalt glanced at the perfectly mortal tuxedo cat in Gillian’s lap. “No, I don’t believe he thinks that.”

Misty yawned and patted Gillian’s arm with his tail. “Oh, sure. Because you know everything about cats, don’t you?” she asked with a grin. Tybalt raised his eyebrow and didn’t grace that with a response. “Where’s my mom, by the way?”

“She drove the Count of Goldengreen back to his home. I believe she hopes to talk to his parents as well.”

“Drove?” Gillian tilted her head to the side. “That explains why you didn’t go.”

Tybalt groaned. “Is this what the rest of my life is going to be like?”

“Hey! As your stepdaughter, I’m pretty sure it’s in my job description to annoy you. It tests your commitment to your relationship with my mother.”

He met her gaze confidently. “Well, in that case… bring on the challenge.”

She smiled.

Maybe living like this wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

\--

“I need more context on grandma stealing your boyfriend, by the way.”

“I exaggerated the story for comedic purposes. You can’t really steal a person; we are all people with agency, not objects to be possessed and passed around.” Tybalt got up to walk a few steps around the catio, examining what else needed to be done. “I loved a man hundreds of years ago, back in London, and when he told me he loved me, for a variety of reasons I didn’t say it back. So instead of staying with a man who wouldn’t choose him, he followed Amandine to the New World, still hoping that maybe she would.”

“Yikes.”

Tybalt smiled sadly. “I can tell the story many different ways. Just in a few minutes, I gave you two versions. First I made it look like his fault, then I made it look like mine. The truth is somewhere between the two. I’m not sure I have ever found it.”

“Is this man still alive?” Gillian asked. “What happened to him?”

“He got everything he ever wanted. And then he lost all of it.”

“Oh.”

“One of the last times I saw him, I rubbed this in his face - with your mother on my arm, to show my own happiness. I’d like to say I’d take that back now if I could, but he hurt your mother more than he ever hurt me, so I’d be lying.” Tybalt sat back down. “Your mother says she has forgiven him, but when she flinches from water, I feel like I could tear him into a hundred pieces with my bare hands. Other days, I wish him happiness. Faerie is complicated.”

“I think that’s just life.”

Tybalt nodded. “Maybe that’s just life.”


End file.
